"I stayed in the workhouse six weeks; and could stand it no longer. I had to labour, and was half-starved. So one morning I went to the Master, demanded my clothes, and was speedily retracing my steps towards my old haunts. That evening I supped with Dick Flairer at the boozing-ken on Saffron Hill; and the same night we broke into a watchmaker's shop in the City. We got seventeen pounds in money, and a dozen watches and other trinkets, which we sold to the 'fence' in Field Lane for thirty guineas. That was a good bargain for him! I then went and took up my quarters with Dick Flairer at his lodgings; and in a few weeks I married his sister Mary. Six or eight months afterwards poor Dick was killed; and—"
CHAPTER C.
THE MYSTERIES OF THE GROUND-FLOOR ROOMS.
THE Buffer was interrupted at this point by the return of his wife, who in spite of the protection of the Resurrection Man's umbrella, was dripping wet.
We must observe that we have taken the liberty of altering and improving the language, in which the Buffer delivered his autobiography, to the utmost of our power: we have moreover embodied his crude ideas and reduced his random observations into a tangible shape. We should add that the man was not deficient in intellectual sharpness, in spite of the stolid expression of his countenance; and thus the observations which he made relative to prison discipline and the neglect of government to adopt means of preventing crime in preference to punishing it when committed, need excite no astonishment in those who peruse them.
But to return to the thread of our narrative.
When the Buffer's wife had taken a warm seat by the fire, and comforted herself with a tolerably profound libation of steaming gin-and-water, she proceeded to give an account of her mission.
"I went down to Globe Lane," she said; "and a miserable walk it was, I can assure you. The rain falls in torrents, and the wind blows enough to carry the Monument into the Thames. By the time I got down to the undertaker's house I was drenched. Then Banks wasn't at home; but his wife asked me to stop till he came in; and as I thought that the business was pressing, I agreed. I waited—and waited till I was tired; one hour passed—then half an hour more; and I was just coming back when Banks walks in."
"And so you gave him the note," said the Resurrection Man, who had listened somewhat impatiently to this prelude.
"Yes—I gave him the note," continued Moll Wicks; "and he put on a pair of spectacles with round glasses as big as the bottoms of wine-glasses. When he had read it, he said he would attend to it, and should call his-self on you to-morrow morning by nine o'clock."
"Well and good," exclaimed the Resurrection Man.